Komakuk Summer Expedition 2019 –Summary

The fieldwork of WP 1 at Komakuk Beach (Ivvavik National Park, Yukon Territory, CA) has been successful. We collected more than 400 soil samples, vegetation, root and water samples.

Picture 1: Describing and sampling the thawed part of the soil, also called the “active layer”

Picture 2: Coring into the permafrost

The weather as well as the wildlife have been very rich in diversity. Welcomed by a sunny day and a few Mosquitos (which were almost completely absent for the following period of sampling) we had to face a Tundra thunderstorm on the very first evening. Two storms followed. Luckily we flew out one day earlier than planned, because the weather conditions became very stormy towards the end of our stay. However, we would make use of our time and go to the field on almost every day. Even the rainy and slightly windy days were used for the collection of ground truth information of the land surface (vegetation and landforms at certain locations measured with GPS).

Besides Geese, Caribou and Ptarmigans, we had also a few more spectacular visitors – 5 (!)Polar bears came along the Beach, on their way from Alaska.

Picture3: One of our “Guests” at Komakuk Beach.

Back in the lab in Inuvik, Luca, Willeke and Julia processed root and vegetation samples, Victoria processed soil samples. Soil samples will be further processed in the different labs in Vienna (microbiology), Venice (organic contaminants), Lisbon (inorganic contaminants), Stockholm (bulk density, CN) and Amsterdam (soil water).

Picture 4: Scanning of leaves for determining leaf area index (LAI).

Picture 5: Roots washed from the soil and prepared for scanning. Back in Stockholm the Scans will be further analyzed with a software developed for roots to e.g. determine the amount of fine and coarse roots.